


Honey Sweet as First Love

by starsapphic



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, post episode 7, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 03:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13802331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsapphic/pseuds/starsapphic
Summary: Yuuri thinks and thinks about his free skate, and what Viktor's given him these past few months.





	Honey Sweet as First Love

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this pretty much immediately after the Cup of China episode, about a year ago. It's silly and more like prose than a real work, but I hope you enjoy it!

Yuuri is on the ice, feet streaking translucent lines across the rink and artificial wind whipping and breathing around his face. He's practicing through his free skate for the god-knows-what time, and he can almost physically feel the silhouette of his past millions of runs as he steps through them all again. It's like retracing his shoe-prints through the fading snow, running back to his house while finding familiar imprints and impressions in the ground, and finally coming home after being away for so so long. It's like that, Yuuri thinks, it's warm and beautiful and comforting and affecting to the heart; like the homely taste of his mother's cooking and the steam of the hot springs settling over his worn body. Even the music is familiar, revamped years after it was initially scrapped, but still music that has followed him and traced his steps with him throughout years of his skating career, up from when he first commissioned it.

 

Hell, the story itself that the music sings is _Yuuri’s_ and _Yuuri’s alone_. It's a song of stumbling and falling, of failing, losing, disappointment, of hurt. It's gentle and shy as it starts, notes tripping over themselves; calling up the feeling of new leather wound around his feet in his childhood, as he tried to paint his mind’s image with a different brush. And then- and then it's a story of triumph, a story of pulling himself out of the darkest, darkest depths of hell to push himself to become greater. Ambitious, chiming octaves intertwine themselves into the song alongside pounding arpeggios and a desperate and longing voice. It’s a story of success being in him all along- pounding in his heart, against his rib cage, feverish and longing to express itself. Perhaps, Yuuri thinks. He doesn't think he's this grand hero lavishing on the rink; far from a prince taken a penchant to the ice. But the dramatic song does ring true to his life to a considerable degree.

 

And the steps, the turns themselves. They're old friends to Yuuri; familial and treasured within him. He knows all the techniques to landing axels and toe loops and lutzes, memories shelved cozily in his mind away from forgetfulness and carelessness. They're strung together like beads on a friendship bracelet- triple, single, double- gifted to him in his childhood and still kept safe throughout the years. All of this, he thinks, is familiar and homely in the best way.

 

Yuuri is nearing the end of the routine when he realizes he doesn't know how to proceed from there. It's sudden, the recall of the night before: when he suddenly decided to throw the audience (and frankly, himself) for a curveball and drop the quad toe loop for a flip. Yuuri is suddenly overwhelmed by the wave of euphoria and adrenaline washing over him; reminded of the look on Viktor’s face when he asked if he’d done well. He's reminded of the rush in his pulse when Viktor lept from behind the guardrail, and, of course, the strikingly new feeling of Viktor’s lips, on his. Yuuri starts to redden, the memory spreading from his ears to his toes, and filling him with a warmth that is not uncomfortable. He remembers the taste of Viktor’s lips; a taste of crystal ice and boldness, and Yuuri swears that he remembers something as honey sweet as first love in Viktor's embrace. He's struck by all of this- and he doesn't know what to do next. The quad flip he pulled at the Cup of China was performed in the spur of the moment, and Yuuri doesn't know if it's to become a regular part of his program.

 

The song is steadily approaching its end when Yuuri spots Viktor, real and solid Viktor, leaning intently on the sidelines. He catches the smile playing on his mouth, the finger resting on his chin- he catches a glimpse of the ocean in his eyes, deep and endless and limitless. And this, is the impetus that urges Yuuri to tuck away all rational thought and subject himself only to the will of his emotions. _Technique… for quad flips…_

 

And so suddenly, he’s on his feet again, sturdy against the ice. _Oh, OH_ , he exhales, _I've done it, I’VE DONE IT._ In a shaky haze, Yuuri pulls through the rest of his routine, but only barely, because the second he strikes the finishing stance, Viktor is crushing him in his arms. And Yuuri can't breathe, he can't tell where his legs end and Viktor’s start, he can't tell whose pounding heartbeat is whose, because Viktor is so very close, his breaths coming out ragged and steamy by his neck. Ears ringing with white noise and eyes cloudy and hazy, seeing nothing but the vast expanse of the ice and tousled silver hair pressed up against his face.

 

And, suddenly, Yuuri knows, knows without the slightest trace of doubt, that this is love. Unfettered, unadulterated, in its purest form, love. Some kind of abstract feeling born from wanting to hold on to Viktor- solidified into an emotion that makes Yuuri feel like he's seeing the sun rise for the first time. Seeing brilliant scarlets streak across the horizon, newborn morning light suffusing through the sky in a breathtaking display that makes him think, yeah, I never want to let this go. This is the stuff that the poets write and the dreamers dream of, the artists paint and the singers sing of. Yuuri knows that here in Viktor's arms is home, here on the ice is love.

  



End file.
